The hottest game on the Internet right now is e-commerce, which by now has a lot of players and few winners. One of the biggest challenges in developing a successful online storefront is choosing the right software solution for your site, which can make the difference between making money and losing money on the Web. If there was one magic solution, we'd sell it to you. Since there isn't an e-commerce panacea, we put together this guide to help provide you with an overview of available software and how to go about making the best selection for you and your company.
An electronic commerce business is no less demanding than any other type of business operation, but it is also quite different. Instead of the traditional brick and mortar storefront, everything happens in the form of bits and bytes flowing over the Internet and what makes it tick is e-commerce software. To engage in e-commerce, a company needs to develop a Web site and fill it with Web pages that can inform customers, display products, conduct purchase transactions, and provide feedback and results. The most critical decision is determining which e-commerce software a company should use to do all of this.
One complex solution is to develop your own customized software. This requires the work of many specialists in Web and programming languages (HTML, Java, etc.) and is very expensive. Most companies would fare better by investing in a commercial software product.
Where do I start?
With all these options, a common question is "where do I start?" We suggest deciding what kind of e-commerce business you want -- consumer, business to business, or both. The consumer side of e-commerce is the retail trade, where companies offer products for immediate purchase. (This distinguishes e-commerce from sites that merely promote products.) The business-to-business side of e-commerce can involve both wholesale purchasing and electronic data transfers (payments, invoices, etc.) between business partnerships. Not all e-commerce software can do both, or at least not without additional programming and expert configuration.
Building an e-Commerce Business with Software
So what's involved with building an e-Commerce business? While there are vast differences between a consumer and business-to-business site, the similarities are prevalent. All of the software will create a store operation. This consists of a product catalog (where the online customers select what they want to order), a shopping cart (where product selections are collected), transaction security (credit authorization and other payment schemes), and order processing (shipping, taxes, inventory, etc.). All of these elements combined give the store a personality and the end users a true shopping experience.
The All-Important Catalog
Whether browsing or buying, from the customer's perspective the online catalog is the most important part of e-commerce. It's similar to the printed mail-order catalog with respect to the basics: products, pictures, and prices. However, a Web catalog can be a fully interactive shopping experience, Inc.uding video, sound, and a lot more. Making a Web catalog into a multimedia extravaganza is not easy (read: expensive). Collecting and incorporating images, sounds, and other trimmings for hundreds (or thousands) of catalog products is both a major organizational effort and a complex job for the e-commerce storefront developer.
Many e-commerce products also come with catalog page templates that can be used repeatedly and easily, so the work does not have to be duplicated many times. Not incidentally, connecting to or importing data such as prices and product descriptions can be a major headache. If the items in your catalog change frequently or you have a large number of items.
Processing Orders
-- Where the Devil is in the Details As a customer shops in your online store, catalog selections are usually put into a "shopping cart." Cart selections are then stored in a database so the customer can review what has been selected before check out. Again, this is not much different from ordering in a regular store, but there can be some wrinkles.
There can be many details involved with shipping and taxes, so look for software that supports third-party shipping modules (e.g. Tandata from Tandata Corporation) and tax calculation packages (e.g. Taxware by Taxware International). There are many other kinds of calculations associated with orders; discounts, coupons, volume breaks, to name a few. Most e-commerce software can do some of these calculations. You should check your needs against the list of supported calculations, or at least be able to easily add customized calculations.
Security and Payment Because they're impersonal, Internet transactions can get downright touchy. You need to establish a sense of security without creating the feeling of Fort Knox. Customers must be able to select a mode of payment and the software must verify their ability to pay. This can involve credit cards, electronic cash, or purchase orders. Specialized software such as CyberCash, CommercePOINT eTill, and Microsoft Wallet can verify the purchaser and the purchase. E-commerce software packages should also work with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Secure Electronic Transfer (SET) technologies for encryption of data transmissions. The more of these supported by an e-commerce package, the better. Most e-payment solution providers will require that your company establish a special bank account to handle the online transactions.
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